


Homunculus to the Life

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2020 [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Homunculi, Master of Death Harry Potter, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, Polyamory, Present Tense, Romance, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27889183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: In a conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait after the battle at Hogwarts, Harry finds out that he is and always has been a homunculus—a substitute body made to carry the Horcrux so that little Harry Potter, who lies asleep as a baby under powerful charms, wouldn’t have to. Harry struggles to process the news, the fallout, and the discovery that he might disintegrate at any moment.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993852
Comments: 121
Kudos: 1205





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, and will have two parts. (I wanted it to be a oneshot, but it had other ideas). Enjoy.

Dumbledore tells him the truth just after Harry finishes repairing his holly wand with the Elder one.

“I’m afraid it’s true, my boy,” Dumbledore says, his head bowed with something that might be shame as Harry slumps against the desk and stares at him. Ron and Hermione are silent with utter shock on either side of Harry. “You are—not the original Harry Potter. When I came to Godric’s Hollow, I recognized the imprint of some powerful and evil magic behind little Harry’s curse scar. I didn’t know at the time it was a Horcrux. That took me years more of study to discover. But I did know it was something Dark, and something discrete, not yet worked into Harry’s soul. So I used the Elder Wand to move it out of him and into a temporary body.”

“Me,” Harry whispers. Hermione’s hand crushes his left one, and Ron’s hand his shoulder.

“Yes.” Dumbledore’s voice is thick, although he still has his head bowed so Harry can’t see his face. Shame or remorse? What does it matter? “You were to be a temporary solution while I worked on a way to defeat Voldemort for good. Baby Harry Potter is asleep in the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries. At the end of each day, they cycle the time back twenty-four hours. He hasn’t aged since the day his parents died, and he hasn’t woken.”

Harry swallows, but can think of nothing to say. Hermione can, not surprisingly. “But why did you move the Horcrux into a body at _all_ , sir? Why not move it into an object and destroy it later? Why did you—” Her breath hitches on the edge of a sob, and Harry imagines that she must be regretting all the years she wasted as a friend to someone who doesn’t even exist. “Do this?”

“The public needed a savior,” Dumbledore says tiredly. “Someone to focus on. I planned, once the hysteria died down a little, to have the homunculus die a natural death.”

“You would have _killed_ him?” Ron’s voice is loud in the office, and the past Headmasters’ portraits crane their necks to look at them. Dumbledore asked Harry to put up a Silencing Charm before he told them the truth, so the paintings don’t have any idea what’s being said. It’s the only saving grace Harry can see in the situation.

“No. The bodies of homunculi that are meant to mimic human beings decay over time. Rather like the body of the homunculus that Voldemort was trapped in before his resurrection.”

Harry shudders and tries to draw away from his friends. The feeling of being _tainted_ is washing over him like a waterfall of grease. But Hermione leans harder against him, and says, “Harry didn’t.”

“No.” Dumbledore sounds a little bewildered. He still doesn’t look at them. “It may have to do with the fact that the Elder Wand is…powerful and likes to show off.” He raises his head then and locks his eyes with Harry’s for a second. “Or perhaps, even then, it knew who its master would be.”

“Can Harry’s body still disintegrate at any time?” Ron’s voice cracks. “You’re saying he could just _die_?”

“I don’t know.” Dumbledore stares at Harry, and Harry can’t even make sense of all the emotions changing in his eyes. “With the Horcrux gone, an essential part of what was holding him together might be gone, too. Or he might continue to live because he now holds the Elder Wand.”

Harry blinks and looks down at the Elder Wand. Then he throws it away from him, as hard as he can.

It hits the wall with a cracking sound, but of course, it doesn’t actually crack. It rolls back towards Harry, clinking softly, and flies up onto the Headmaster’s desk to lie there, nestled next to his holly wand.

Harry puts his hands over his face.

“And what was your plan going to be for the baby?” Hermione is demanding. Harry listens with ears that seem wrapped with cotton wool. “Just leave him in the Time Chamber forever?”

“No.” Dumbledore sighs. “The Unspeakables will have been alerted by an alarm when Harry…died. They will have removed him from the Time Chamber by now.”

“So he can grow up?” Ron’s voice is low and challenging.

“Yes. I was thinking that your mother might be the perfect choice to raise him, Ron. He’ll need a loving family.”

Harry turns and walks out of the office. He can’t listen to any more of this. It should have been hard to tear free of the holds Ron and Hermione had on him, but it isn’t. He can hear their voices rising behind him, questioning Dumbledore.

What does it matter? Harry isn’t who he always thought he was. He’s not even _human._

Once, when they were both five—when Harry thought they were both five—Dudley called Harry a monster, and said he wasn’t born but just put together in a witch’s cauldron. Harry hit him for it, and got hit back a lot harder.

But what do you know? Dudley was right.

Harry makes his way to Gryffindor Tower and collapses into bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. At some point he realizes that something small and slender has arrived next to him, and glances down to see the Elder Wand.

Harry picks it up and flings it across the room.

It’s back by his side by the time his mind mercifully darkens.

*

“I gave Dumbledore a piece of my mind.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Harry mumbles around a mouthful of the sandwich that Kreacher brought up.

Hermione, who’s lying across from him on the bed that used to be Neville’s, gives him a worried smile. “Dumbledore says that he put some Galleons into a vault for you at Gringotts, under the name Harry Dumbledore. He never expected you to live long enough for you to need Harry Potter’s vault, but then he let it proceed when it turned out you did.”

Harry breathes out slowly. “You mean he never expected me to _last_ long enough.”

“That, too.”

Hermione has her stubborn look on, and Harry knows that he won’t get far if he tries to insist on his status as a non-living object. Hell, he can’t get used to it himself. He’s still walking around and breathing and eating and sleeping. Trying to contemplate that he might crumble to dust, or mud, or whatever Dumbledore made his homunculus body of, one day—

Harry shakes his head rapidly to clear the thought away, and sees Hermione’s hand extended to him. He clasps it, tightly.

“Ron went and found his mum and brought her to Dumbledore’s portrait,” Hermione whispers. “She said that of course she would adopt the baby—you. I think she needs it given Fred’s death.”

Harry only nods. He never intended to try and force himself on the Weasleys after the war, anyway. First he thought he would be dead, and now he thinks that he really doesn’t want to be around the “real” Harry Potter, even though he knows it’s cowardly, and it’s not like it’s a toddler’s fault.

“Apparently, Dumbledore left instructions with the Unspeakables to tell everyone about baby Harry.” Hermione blurts. “So that’s what they did. It’s the story on the front page of the _Prophet._ ”

Harry closes his eyes. He can just imagine the pity and the whispers and the sidelong glances. He wants to escape from all that.

That solidifies a resolution that’s been building in the back of his mind since he heard the news from Dumbledore, probably, but this has pushed him to realize what it is.

“I have to leave,” he whispers.

Hermione doesn’t say anything, and Harry looks at her, because he assumed she would try to talk him out of it. She’s nodding, biting her lip and looking at him with wide, teary eyes. They never fall, but that her tears are there at all is significant.

“I think you do,” she says. “There are too many people who are going to think themselves entitled to know all about this. People who will decide that you’re not the _real_ Harry Potter, that you’re an imposter of some kind, or a trick of Voldemort’s, or who knows what. People who will want to be friends with the baby or turn you against him. Maybe even people who’ll want to do magical experiments on you to see how you’ve survived so long.”

Harry shudders in disgust. He sighs and picks up the Elder Wand, since that seems like it has to come with him. “Can you—can you talk to Molly and the others? Tell them why I’m leaving?”

“Of course, Harry.”

Harry sighs again when he thinks about Gringotts and the fact that they broke into to take a Horcrux out. He’s not at all sure he’ll be able to get the Galleons that Dumbledore left for him. But he’ll have to try. Otherwise, he won’t have any money. “And do you think someone, maybe Bill, could go and withdraw the Galleons Dumbledore left for me and close the vault? Is there a vault key?”

“Yes. Dumbledore’s portrait told me where it’s hidden.”

“Good.” Harry exhales and glances around the room, wondering distractedly what else he needs to bring with him. His clothes; they’re his, and Baby Harry couldn’t wear them, anyway. The Invisibility Cloak ought to stay here because it’s a Potter heirloom—

There’s a blurring in the air near him, and Harry staggers backwards on the bed as the Cloak drapes itself bodily over him. Harry stares at it and tries to pry it off him. It winds itself firmly around his arms and clings.

“I think it wants to come with you,” Hermione murmurs, the quiver of a laugh in her voice.

“I don’t know why, though,” Harry complains as he manages to stop the Cloak’s sleeves from completely making his arms invisible. “It ought to want to stay with the next Potter.”

Hermione considers him with her eyebrows raised. “Or it wants to stay with the Master of Death.”

Harry blinks at her. “I thought you didn’t believe in fairy tales.”

“I will when all the evidence points that way.”

Hermione has her jaw squared the way it gets when it does no good to argue with her. Harry sighs. “All right, I reckon it comes with. And if I—disintegrate, or whatever—I hope I’ll have some warning, and I can send it back to you, and you can pass it on to Baby Harry.”

Hermione frowns at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I might fall apart now that the Horcrux is out of me,” Harry says, as evenly as he can. “You heard Dumbledore.”

“Not that part. The part where you assume you would have to send it _back_ to me.”

“Well, either you or Ron. You’re the only ones I trust to pass it on—”

“We’re going to be _with_ you. If you die, not disintegrate, _die,_ then of course we’ll take the Cloak back to the baby.”

Harry sits there and feels as though a huge gap has opened up in front of him, but he’s not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. “You have to search for your parents. And I thought Ron would want to stay with his family.”

“I can search for my parents while we’re going around the world to get you away from the situation here. And Ron—he’d like to, sure, but if you think he’d leave you in a situation like this—”

“Then you’re mental, mate,” Ron says cheerfully, coming up the stairs and holstering his wand as he does so. “You wouldn’t believe how many people are down there asking intrusive questions and acting like they have a _right_ to the answers. Bloody Malfoy even tried to come into the Tower. Something about a life-debt.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “That kind of thing can be handled in a letter.”

“Oh, he said that he didn’t know if he owed you a life-debt or not if you were a homunculus.” Ron flops on his bed and tucks his hands behind his head. His hair shines in the early May sunshine coming through the windows. “I think it was just an excuse.”

“I bet you had fun telling him no,” Hermione says, smiling.

“Yeah.”

Harry looks back and forth between his friends, at the fond expressions on both their faces, and knows that he should refuse their offer to come with him, for their own good. They’re just beginning to explore their romance. What kind of romance will they have if they go with him? Hasn’t he dragged them into enough danger?

But he also knows, just for himself, that he can’t give them up. He’s not strong enough to do it right now.

“It doesn’t matter to you that I’m a homunculus?” he asks. “Not the real Harry Potter?”

Ron’s smile vanishes, and he leans forwards, so intent that it feels like Harry is being examined by some great cat. “What matters to _me_ is that you’re the one I made friends with on the train. My best mate.”

“The one who helped save me from the troll,” Hermione says.

“The one I played a bloody huge chess game for.”

“The one I investigated a basilisk with.”

“The one I played Quidditch with.”

“The one I traveled back in time with.”

“The one I—” Ron turns red. “The one I was a prat about when he was entered into the Tournament against his will.”

Hermione sniffs at Ron. “The one I helped study spells against dragons for.”

“The one we both went to the Department of Mysteries with.”

“The one we went on the Horcrux hunt with.” Hermione gets up from Neville’s bed and comes over to hug him. “Don’t tell us to give you up _now._ ”

Harry buries his face in Hermione’s shoulder, and reaches back to pull Ron into the hug, and holds on to them both.

*

“Ron and Hermione said that you’re going away with them.”

Ginny’s face is guarded and wary. Harry supposes he can’t blame her. What he learned from Dumbledore _is_ shocking news, and it has to make anyone who knows him feel knocked off-balance, scrambling to understand what he really is.

( _Except Ron and Hermione,_ his brain whispers, but Ginny isn’t them, and Harry always knew that, and doesn’t resent it).

“Yeah.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. They’re alone in the garden of the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley burst into tears and hugged Harry when she saw him, and offered to introduce him to his—the original Harry Potter, sleeping upstairs, but Harry just didn’t feel up to it. Then she herded everyone else away so that he and Ginny could have a moment together.

As Ginny stares at her hands, Harry becomes more and more convinced that it’s not really _together,_ as such.

Ginny swallows and looks up again. “It was really you who came and rescued me in the Chamber of Secrets?” Her voice wavers back and forth.

“Of course!” Harry says, and even as he says it, he knows his voice is both too loud and too angry. He looks away from Ginny and stares at the far side of the gardens. “But not really me who survived the Killing Curse. Not really me who’s the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“Oh.”

Ginny stands there looking elsewhere, and Harry can’t blame her. He _shouldn’t_ blame her, let’s put it that way. After all, he might fall to pieces any day, and he didn’t really defeat Voldemort’s Killing Curse, and he only exists at all because of the Elder Wand. Ginny has to be feeling confused, when she knew him as the Boy-Who-Lived, and it turns out that he’s—

_Not really that. Both that and something else._

Harry has to admit, though, since Ron and Hermione recited that list of everything they survived together, that he’s a little more annoyed at the thought that he’s not _really_ Harry Potter. Maybe he doesn’t have the right to that name. But he did survive everything most people thought he survived except the one thing. He’s the one who burned Quirrell in his first year—Hermione told him that came from protections that Dumbledore implanted in the homunculus body—and killed the basilisk and got called the Heir of Slytherin and rescued Sirius and competed in the Tournament and got used in a resurrection ritual and got tortured by Umbridge and _had to walk to his death_ and all the rest of it.

But he’s also coming to agree with Hermione’s perception that it’s useless to argue about that kind of thing. If Ginny has to take a step back to reevaluate things, or doesn’t think him of as really Harry anymore, then that’s her problem to struggle with.

Harry is leaving. Harry has Ron and Hermione. More and more, he’s coming to think that he doesn’t need anyone else.

Ginny squares her shoulders. “I won’t be going with you.”

Harry holds back the temptation to ask why she thought she’d be welcome. It would only make things harder between them than they need to be. “I know. So, this is goodbye.” He holds out his hand.

Ginny clasps it, looking both shy and squeamish. “Um. Good luck, Harry.” She runs away before Harry can ask her what for.

Harry closes his eyes and stands there, wind ruffling his hair. They _feel_ real, both the wind and the hair.

So that’s the end of one thing that could have been.

*

In the end, Harry does go upstairs to the twins’ old room and look in on Baby Harry.

 _Not so much a baby,_ Harry thinks, startled at the size of the toddler curled up on the bed with his thumb in his mouth. Then he shakes his head. Of course, he—Harry—was fifteen months old when he survived the Killing Curse. Just because Harry doesn’t remember being that size himself doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.

The kid’s cute. Harry finds himself thinking of Baby Harry that way, as the kid, as though they’re essentially two separate people.

And they are. If one can call Harry a “person.”

Harry has to smile, knowing exactly the kind of furious scolding he’ll get from Hermione if he ever says that.

He steps into the bedroom and runs his hand gently through the baby’s black hair. Baby Harry coos and turns his head in the direction of Harry’s touch. There’s no lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Harry supposes that transferred to him when Dumbledore transferred the Horcrux, or maybe it “naturally” appeared on the homunculus’s forehead as a consequence of carrying the Horcrux.

 _God, this is so weird._ The homunculus is himself, but it feels hard to think of that way. And Baby Harry is a separate person from him, but it feels difficult to think of that, too.

Baby Harry abruptly opens his eyes. Harry jumps. Those eyes are the same brilliant green as his own, or they’re a different color and brighter. He can’t tell. It’s not like he walks around with a mirror, the way Malfoy probably does.

What is it going to be like for Baby Harry to grow up in a world where Malfoy isn’t his enemy, and Mrs. Weasley is his mum? Harry has to admit he envies Baby Harry that last part. The first one, he isn’t sure about.

Baby Harry reaches out a hand. “You,” he says sleepily.

Harry ruffles his hair again, not sure how talkative children this age are. “Yeah,” he says, embarrassed. “Me.”

_Not you._

Before Harry can spiral down into thinking depressed thoughts about that, Baby Harry lifts his arms. “Up,” he says insistently.

Harry blinks and carefully picks him up. Baby Harry is a heavy warm weight in his arms. He peers at Harry’s face, pulls for a second at his glasses, glances around the room, and clings.

Harry pats his back a few times, and then puts him back on the bed. Baby Harry begins to wail. Harry winces. He knows shite about babies.

Luckily, Mrs. Weasley is right there and bustles into the room, reaching for Baby Harry while patting Harry absently on the shoulder as she passes. Harry backs up a step and watches Baby Harry crying and Mrs. Weasley murmuring something about how he needs his nappy changed.

And something else inside him twitches and shifts.

Maybe everything _else_ about the situation is bad, but at least Harry can spare Baby Harry the torture of growing up with the Dursleys and fighting in a war.

Maybe it’s not so bad to have been a magical construct after all, if it means that he stood in the way to protect an innocent.

He’s pretty sure that his saving-people thing is his, not something Dumbledore implanted in him as a homunculus. Of course, how does he know that for sure? Dumbledore’s portrait didn’t mention it, but maybe he would have wanted to create someone—something—that would jump in the way when _real_ humans were endangered.

On the other hand, homunculi aren’t supposed to have feelings, either. Just to mimic the functions of life.

Harry is pretty sure he’s really alive, but he doesn’t know how you tell when your own experience is all you have.

He slips downstairs while Mrs. Weasley is changing Baby Harry’s nappy, and sees Ron and Hermione both waiting for him near the front door. Hermione smiles at him, while Ron nods and asks, “Got it all, mate?”

Harry can feel his shrunken trunk in his pocket when he shifts his weight. The Cloak is stuffed in another pocket, the holly wand is in its holster, and the Elder Wand is in a second holster a shopkeep in Diagon Alley sold him with a lot of staring. (She insisted on seeing Harry’s Galleons first, as if she thought his money might be a construct like he is).

And his two best friends are waiting for him.

Harry smiles. “Yeah.”

*

They go to France first, where, unexpectedly, they have an invitation to stay with the Delacours. Harry accepted it gratefully. He doesn’t know if they want to gape at him or if it’s just because of Ron’s family connection with Fleur, but either way, it’s a place to stay while they plan where to go next.

When they reach the Apparition coordinates, a shining meadow of blue and silver grass opens in front of them, dotted with nodding white flowers. Harry blinks, first because there’s a massive manor house in the distance that seems to be made entirely of marble, and second because there’s a young silver-haired woman in blue dress robes curtseying in front of them.

She straightens up, and Harry realizes her face is familiar.

“Gabrielle?” he asks uncertainly.

Gabrielle smiles at him and runs over to take his hands. “You do remember me!” she says. “I told Maman you would—” She leaps into French, and Harry laughs a little and gently takes his hands away, so that she won’t think he’s rejecting her friendship.

“I’m glad to see you. But you don’t need to curtsey.” Harry can practically feel Ron and Hermione exchanging glances behind his back. He hopes they don’t think that he’s become a stuck-up berk who needs people curtseying to him all the time.

An image flashes into his mind of Hermione trying to curtsey, and he holds back laughter with an effort. She would never manage it.

“But you are a—” Gabrielle pauses, and Harry tenses, wondering what she’s going to say, if there’s a French word for the kind of magical construct he is and if he’ll even recognize it. But then Gabrielle nods. “You are a _miracle_ ,” she says, pronouncing the English word with relish.

“I’m a what?”

“Of course he is,” Ron says, and comes up to nudge Harry with an elbow, moving him a little away from Gabrielle. Harry’s too stunned to figure out why. “With all the times he survived? It’s a bloody miracle he’s walking around.”

Gabrielle wrinkles her nose a little at Ron, probably not understanding his rapid English. “Maman!” she turns and calls back at the house, and a tall woman with shining silver hair, purple robes, and overwhelming _presence_ Apparates into the meadow beside her.

Harry bows a little himself, overwhelmed. This must be Apolline Delacour, Fleur and Gabrielle’s mother, and the wife of the French Minister for Magic.

“Harry.” Apolline’s voice is more heavily accented than Fleur’s, but Harry finds he can understand her if he listens. “My thanks for coming. It is a long time since we have had one like you among us.”

Harry shakes her hand, but he exchanges a puzzled look with Ron. Ron also looks a little dazed, which probably means that Apolline’s presence is radiating allure strong enough to hit him. Hermione is the one who comes up and clears her throat this time.

“Thank you for having us, Madame Delacour,” she says, and then launches straight into French that leaves Harry blinking. Gabrielle jumps into the conversation, too. Ron and Harry blink at each other.

“Did you know she could do that?” Harry asks in an undertone.

“No. But she’s always been brilliant, you know that. And she spent some holidays in France.”

That part, Harry forgot. He watches the way Ron beams at Hermione, and feels both jealousy and confusion. He really _should_ have insisted they stay behind so they could get on with falling in love.

But the way Ron looks at Hermione…

It’s not so different from the way Ron looks at _him_ , sometimes.

Harry doesn’t know what to think of that.

*

It turns out that staying with the Delacours is oddly restful. They chatter about him and to him, sometimes in French and sometimes in English, but their eyes are filled with an admiration that Harry at least knows has to do with the way he rescued Gabrielle and the fact that he’s a living homunculus—which is special to them for a reason that apparently has to do with their ancestors—and nothing to do with the scar on his forehead or his status as the Boy-Who-Lived.

Their house is huge and filled with rooms that have soft carpets and sunlight and what seems to be dozens of large, silvery-furred dogs who want to follow Harry around and put their chins in his lap. Harry pets them, and remembers Padfoot, and for the first time in a long time, the memories don’t hurt.

Hermione vanishes into the Delacour library, or into long conversations in the gardens with Apolline. Ron lounges around with Harry, and sometimes plays with the dogs, and sometimes plays Quidditch. Gabrielle plays the piano in the same room and sometimes casts bright, blushing looks at Harry that he pretends not to see.

Ron does, though.

“I think Gabrielle fancies you,” he remarks, one evening when Gabrielle has stayed late wandering in dreamy melodies on the piano and had to be called up to bed by her mother.

Harry shrugs a little. “It’s not like I fancy her.” He doesn’t know what to make of the tone in Ron’s voice. Jealous? Is that because he fancies Gabrielle himself, or because he’s jealous of Ginny’s claim?

“You could, you know. I mean, not her, she’s pretty young, but you could find someone to love.”

All the relaxation flees Harry’s body in instants, and he stares at the ceiling for a second the way he did at the canopy of his bed in the Gryffindor Tower. A second later, he shakes his head and keeps his voice as calm and light as he can. “Who would want to be with someone whose body might crumble any second, Ron?”

“How does that make you any different from anyone else?”

“Huh?” Harry rolls his head to stare at him. They’ve both been lounging in recliners near the glass windows that let out into the garden. Ron is staring straight ahead, and the dusk is deep enough that it’s hard to make out the expression on his face.

Then Ron looks at him, and Harry can. It’s as blindingly bright as Ron’s face looked when he sacrificed himself to defeat that chess set.

“We’re _all_ going to die,” Ron says, with quiet, savage intensity. “All of us. It could be any moment. At any time. I could fall off a broom tomorrow. It could turn out that Hermione has some kind of disease that none of us knew about, and it could kill her in a month.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Harry whispers, reaching out to clasp Ron’s shoulder.

Ron grabs Harry’s hand before it can get to his shoulder and holds on, but he keeps going. “I’m only saying. Life is fragile, Harry. You could die at any time. So could we. Why does it _matter_? Do you think it should keep you from falling in love? Finding happiness? Having a family?”

“It—it wouldn’t be fair to saddle someone with me when—”

“ _Saddle_.” Ron laughs, and his voice is husky and bitter. “Mate, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Gabrielle isn’t the only one looking at you like that.”

“Ginny. I know.” Harry sighs. “But she changed her mind before we left. She pretty much implied that she didn’t know who I was and she didn’t feel able to go on dating me.”

“Anyone would be lucky to be with you.”

Harry squeezes Ron’s hand. “I’m the one who’s lucky to be with you and Hermione.”

“Yeah.” Ron leans a little nearer, studying him. “And don’t you _forget_ it. If you think that’s we going to let you go act stupid by yourself, or fall to pieces alone, or whatever, then you can give up that notion right now.” He lets go of Harry’s hand, but not his gaze, as he stands up. Then he nods and stalks away into the house, presumably to go to the bedroom Apolline’s given him upstairs.

Harry stares after him, wondering.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is going to be three parts after all, as I didn’t get as much written as I wanted to today. And also, the story keeps growing.

When they leave the Delacours, even Hermione seems ready to move on. Harry gives Gabrielle and Apolline an awkward bow in front of the manor house. Fleur’s father is at work, as usual, but Harry feels that Gabrielle and Apolline were their real hosts in any case.

“Thank you for having me. Even though I’m a homunculus,” he has to add, because he wouldn’t have felt right if he hadn’t.

Gabrielle shakes her head at him, but Apolline is the one who steps nearer and watches him with a calm, steady look. “You are most welcome,” she says. “You know that you are not a _thing_?”

Harry squints at her, not entirely sure that he knows what she’s saying. The language barrier might be in the way. “What?”

“You are a person. Not a _thing._ ”

“Some people would disagree with you.”

“Some people,” Apolline says, and her accent gets a little sharper, “think that one’s _birth_ matters. Veela, magic, Muggle. I say it is not. I say it is what you _become_ , you understand?”

It’s a simple statement, so simple that Harry can’t believe that it never occurred to him before. But he finds himself smiling helplessly at Apolline, because it _didn’t_ , and now she’s put it in a way that he can’t ignore.

“I understand,” Harry whispers. “Thank you.”

Apolline nods at him, and then Gabrielle skips up to him and kisses him on the cheek, before shaking hands with Ron and Hermione, which her mother is already doing. Apolline holds his gaze for a long moment as she shakes Harry’s hand.

“Not for Gabrielle,” she murmurs in an undertone. Gabrielle is chattering with Hermione in French and probably won’t notice.

Harry nods. “I understand. I am not—for her.”

“And you have others.”

Harry blinks, his mind going back to what Ron said a few nights ago, but Apolline has already released his hand and stepped away. She calls to Gabrielle, who waves to them all one more time before Hermione takes Harry’s left arm and Ron takes his right, and Harry closes his eyes to Apparate them to their next destination, in the south of Spain.

_I say it is not. I say it is what you become._

His heart unexpectedly light within him, Harry concentrates on the coordinates, and Apparates.

*

According to Hermione, the little Spanish wizarding village they’re staying in, which seems to have a different name according to everyone they ask, was once part of al-Andalus. Ron asks what al-Andalus is and why it’s loose, and gets a lecture about history that mostly seems Muggle rather than magical to Harry.

They’re quiet days, sleeping through the forenoon and the blazing heat, wandering the old streets where people seem to Apparate more than they walk, and catching glimpses through arched doorways of grey-haired witches rocking slowly in ancient chairs beside fountains and swirling mosaics maintained with magic. Harry uses the time to watch Ron and Hermione.

They’re both even more relaxed than they were at the Delacours’ house, and Harry sees more of Hermione than he did when she was talking all the time with Apolline. Harry finds himself watching the turn of Hermione’s wrist as she scribbles down notes from the gold-flecked books she’s found _somewhere,_ and the way she pushes her hair out of her face.

He can’t get Apolline’s words out of his head, any of them. Or the way that Ron looked at him the night that he told Harry all of them would die, and him being a homunculus didn’t make him _special._

The thought nags at him like a loose tooth. He should be able to get rid of it or embrace it, one way or another.

And yet, he finds himself inching out over the canyon of wanting his two best friends as if he balances on a plank over a steep drop.

Harry always accepted them _being there._ There was never a question that he would tell them about the prophecy, or that they would come with him on the Horcrux hunt. But being there is different from _being with,_ at least the way Harry is putting it together in his mind.

He watches Ron sleeping between two chairs, which he declares is more comfortable than the hammock Hermione conjured. Ron sprawls everywhere, his hands dangling beside him, his snores filling the air with a comfortably familiar sound.

He watches Hermione laughing as Ron spits his first taste of spicy food out and chases after a glass of water, her eyes brilliant as she giggles behind her hand.

He watches Hermione smile when she catches Harry’s eye, and the way her mouth moves when she sits down next to him to tell him about the discoveries on homunculi that she’s been making in the old books, and how Dumbledore might have been wrong about the idea that Harry’s body would just decay and crumble in time.

He watches Ron tilt his head as he stretches in the morning without a shirt, and return Harry’s smile with a slow one that he’s never seen before.

And slowly, the shreds of the courage and the wholeness that Harry thought might have been destroyed forever with Dumbledore’s revelation are coming back.

*

They’ve Apparated to Italy and are in a section of wizarding Florence filled with more gelato shops than anyone could possibly need before Harry asks the question.

“Apolline told me she didn’t want me dating Gabrielle,” he says, as he and Ron and Hermione sit together in the cool little room above a winding stone street. Hermione’s newly-modified charm floats beside them, radiating blue and green light as it sucks up heat from the air and releases it as waves of cold. It’s better than any Muggle fan.

Hermione’s hand stills where she’s writing in her book. She glances up. “Did you want to?” she asks quietly. If Harry wasn’t listening for it, he doesn’t think he would notice the vulnerable tone in her voice.

“A little young for you, mate.” Ron’s voice is sharper where he looks away from the window and watching the people in the street.

“Yeah, I know.” Harry steels himself and makes the plunge that he’s been working up to for days now. “The only two I want are you.”

The air is still enough for a moment that Harry thinks he’s made a horrible mistake. And then Hermione is beaming hard enough that it looks as if she’ll crack her face, and turning to Ron with a little laugh. “I _told_ you that he would find a way around his own nerves!”

Ron rolls his eyes and takes a Sickle from his pocket, tossing it to Hermione. She catches it with another laugh.

“You were _betting_ on me?” Harry tries to feel outraged, but he can only find room for a vast amusement.

“Yes.” Hermione shrugs. “He was the one who thought we would probably have to bring it up to you ourselves. I thought you would get it, after Ron apparently made some kind of little display in the Delacours’ house?”

Her voice shows her disapproval of that clearly enough, but Harry smiles at Ron, who’s looking at him with a quiet, happy intensity that it seems no smile can probably contain. “He told me that I should stop worrying about my homunculus body falling to pieces. He said anyone can die at any time, and we should make the best of what we have while we have it.”

“ _Ron_!”

“It got him here, didn’t it?”

It seems likely, from the huge breath Hermione takes, that they’re going to get a storm of a lecture, but Harry doesn’t leave her the chance to do it. Instead, he gets up from his own chair and comes over. Hermione blinks at him, caught off-guard, and Harry leans down and kisses her.

He never thought, really, about what kissing Hermione might be like. It turns out that it’s excellent. Her lips are cool and chapped, and her mouth is warm when she unexpectedly opens it, and the back of her neck is even warmer as Harry burrows his hand into her hair.

Hermione sighs when Harry cautiously moves backwards. “ _Oh_ ,” she coos. “We should have been doing that _years_ ago.”

Harry glances at Ron, a little concerned that he might be jealous—after all, years ago he was upset about Krum taking Hermione to the Yule Ball—but Ron is snickering. “Yeah,” he says. “Think of all the lectures we could have been spared.”

“ _Ron Weasley_.”

But Hermione sounds too joyous to be prim, and Harry takes the chance to go over and puts his hands on Ron’s shoulders. Ron immediately stands up to face him. For once, Harry doesn’t mind about Ron being taller than he is. It makes for a different kind of excellent when Ron bends down to kiss him.

Ron’s mouth is even warmer. Harry clasps his hands around the back of Ron’s neck, and swears he can feel every one of his freckles.

“Holy hell,” Ron blurts as he abruptly lifts his head.

Harry looks at him, concerned. Was kissing a boy too much after all? He thought that Ron would react worse than Hermione if it turned out that one of them was opposed to being with him after all.

But Ron is only looking at him in admiration and a covetousness that thrills Harry down to his bones. “How did you not have a girlfriend or a boyfriend already?” he asks. “When you can kiss like that?”

“There was Ginny,” Hermione begins, because Hermione is constitutionally incapable of leaving a question unanswered.

Ron rolls his eyes. “Don’t want to think about my sister snogging my bloke, thanks very much.”

 _My bloke._ Harry’s heart feels as if it’s been lifted up to a mountaintop, and part of him—the part that was convinced that he wasn’t “real” no matter what happened, that a homunculus couldn’t really be human—dies a death forever.

*

It’s amazing how well they fit together, after that, and how little changes.

It’s still Hermione who decides where they’re going next, and busies herself getting Apparition coordinates out of people with her expertly-cast Translation Charms. It’s going to be Sicily this time. Harry still watches her laughing and lecturing and reading with her nose buried so close to the page that it looks like she’ll get ink on it and going into a new bookshop with that possessive gleam in her eyes, but this time, he does it with a different kind of fondness.

It’s still Ron who finds the best places to eat, ambling around the streets and smiling and gesturing when his Translation Charm wears off. Sometimes, that works even better than Hermione just talking to people. He brings back more gelato, and pasta that Hermione devours, and some kind of sweetened bread that Harry can’t get enough of. Harry still watches Ron’s hands gesture and hears his laugh boom, and now he does it with contentment settling into him like the joy did.

And he becomes more aware—or aware for the first time—of how much he’s the center of Ron and Hermione’s gazes. Their eyes are always on him, it seems, even when he’s stepping out of the bathroom in whatever place they’re staying, or just waking up in the bed that they now share. So far, they haven’t had sex, just a lot of kissing and touching, but Harry thinks he knows what it’s going to be like when they do. It’s going to be like the warm glide of Hermione’s and Ron’s eyes going over him, and the smiles that Hermione can’t contain, and Ron’s arm slung suddenly around his shoulder as they walk somewhere, the gesture that Harry knows means, _Hands off, he’s ours._

It’s…heartening.

*

They make love for the first time on a Mediterranean beach. Hermione has managed to locate one that has sand instead of inconvenient rocks, and spread out a Cushioning Charm that will keep the sand from being a problem, either.

Harry lies back on the charm with his clothes off. That might have been a mistake, to undress himself first, because Ron and Hermione are staring at him in what honestly looks like _awe._ Harry laughs softly in the shimmer of the sunlight and the Privacy Charm that Hermione has also raised around them.

“What, Dumbledore did a good job forming this body?” he asks, and stretches his arms and makes his muscles ripple.

“ _Harry Potter._ ”

Harry thinks about telling Hermione that that isn’t his name, either, but she doesn’t look to be in the mood to hear it. He smiles up at her and reaches up, and she comes over to him, kneeling down and waving her wand over herself with a murmured word. Her robes shuck themselves off over her head and land on the beach, so that she’s in her…underthings.

Harry’s breath comes faster and faster as he reaches up to unfasten Hermione’s bra. She closes her eyes as his fingers skim softly over her breasts. They’re paler than Harry thought they would be, for some reason, although of course they are, it’s not like Hermione walks around exposing them to the sun. And her nipples are soft and pink, although rapidly becoming less soft under his fingers, and her knickers as she sheds them are soft and wet—

“My turn,” Ron says, and kneels down next to them, as if he thinks this is going to make it _better._ Harry keeps softly touching Hermione’s breasts, massaging them and listening to her make noises, while watching Ron take off his clothes. He removes his robes and the shirt and pants he’s wearing beneath them all at once, his smile deepening as he glances down at Harry’s erection.

“All right there, mate?”

“More than.”

Harry wonders if he should apologize for the thickness of his voice, but it doesn’t seem he needs to, as Ron groans and bends down to take his mouth, and Hermione moans and presses against his hands.

For a while, it seems as if hands are everywhere, and Harry never knows from one moment to the next if he’s going to find smooth skin under his touch, or hard shoulder blades, or gently rolling breasts, or a muscled thigh. But when heat and kisses and tongues leave his body for a bit and clarify things for him, Harry’s head clears, and he can appreciate what’s in front of him.

Hermione is kneeling astride his hips, her head half-bowed, but her hair doesn’t fall into her face enough to hide her blushing cheeks. Her hands flex for a second, then settle on his shoulders. Harry leans up to kiss her, exquisitely aware that that’s enough to make the head of his shaft brush against her dripping folds.

Hermione hisses aloud, and Harry asks, “All right?”

“All right with _you_?”

Harry nods, and accepts her hips into his hands, and she eases down onto him.

The warmth, the sensation of being inside _Hermione,_ the shock, all combine to make a loud grunt fly out of Harry’s mouth. But at least he doesn’t come right away, even if he has to scrabble around on the sand for a minute, and finds a harsh grain of it that somehow escaped past the Cushioning Charm. It stings his finger, and Harry swears and shakily strokes Hermione’s hip with the one hand that stayed in place.

“I wonder if you’ll be able to do both of us at the same time,” Ron says thoughtfully.

Harry wants to say something, but he’s too busy being overwhelmed. He does hope, though, that Ron isn’t talking about sliding into him or Hermione while they’re busy like this. It’s—

Hermione squeezes down and rocks a little on him, and Harry shut his eyes and tilts his head back as far as it’ll go. His brow is streaming with sweat. His eyes sting as if he’s got the sand in them. He tries to say something, and manages to make another grunt.

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione whispers.

At least she sounds as catapulted into the depths as he is. Harry reaches up and blindly finds her breast with one hand, and cups it, and Hermione gasps and wobbles on him, her knees feeling as though they’re about to crush his ribs.

“Merlin, Hermione, let him breathe.”

Harry would like to tell Ron that he’s all right, really, he just hasn’t felt something like this before and he’s trying to get used to it. But his eyes can’t open, and his hips can’t _stop._

It feels as if he lies there for an hour with Hermione riding him and gasping and his own pleasure shooting through him and joining hers, but it can’t be. Harry forces his eyes open at last, against the sweat, and meets Hermione’s. She smiles at him.

It’s the purest smile of happiness that Harry’s ever seen.

He comes with a smile like that on his lips.

Hermione comes, too, he thinks, although she’s so quiet about it he’s honestly not sure. And it’s not like a woman coming has the same visible signs as a bloke would. But on the other hand, from the way Hermione reaches down and touches his chest, Harry is pretty sure she’s satisfied, and she would let him know if she wasn’t.

“Mmm,” she says, and lifts off Harry in a great wet pull. Harry gasps and shivers, suddenly cold. They didn’t cast a Warming Charm to go with the Privacy Charm and the Cushioning one, and they should have, obviously.

“Can you do me, mate?”

Harry blinks at Ron for a second, and then says, “I—I don’t know if I’m ready to have you inside me yet.”

Ron laughs gently. “I meant suck me off.”

Harry can feel his face flushing as brilliantly as sunburn. Of all of them, he didn’t think it would be Ron who would say that so openly, so casually.

But at the same time, he looks at Ron’s cock, which is red enough to hide any freckles on it, and he _wants._ He just doesn’t think he can do anything about that want that involves standing up or rolling over or riding Ron the way Hermione rode him.

That last thought, though, sends a flash through him that says he’ll probably be doing that sometime soon. Right now, lying back and getting his mouth on Ron is the nearest he’ll get to it.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Come here.”

Ron walks over and kneels next to him, a ridiculous look on his face as he gently touches Harry’s chest. He doesn’t seem put off by the wetness draped over Harry’s hips at all. Harry smiles at him, and glances sideways at Hermione, who is waving her wand to clean herself up. Although from the way she’s watching them and sliding her hand down between her legs, it’s going to be wasted effort in a minute.

“Harry. Look at me.”

Harry turns back to Ron, and opens his mouth. Ron makes a soft, shocked sound, although Harry doesn’t know if that has to do with his expression, or them just being here.

Ron slides a hand under Harry’s head and raises it a little, maneuvering him until Harry is the way he wants. Then he kneels over Harry almost the way Hermione did, straddling his chest, and arches his hips slowly forwards, feeding his cock in.

Harry never thought about this, although since he realized he wants his best friends he’s spent more time thinking about all the boys, like Cedric and even young Tom Riddle, who drew his eye. But he knows that it’s going to work out just fine, because it’s Ron. And him.

Ron’s cock is heavy and as warm as the inside of Hermione. Harry carefully works his tongue and mouth around it, trying as best as he can to shield his teeth. He doesn’t think the best way to make this work is to scrape Ron up with toothmarks.

“Mate…”

Ron is the one whose head is tilting back this time, and his hands are clenching his own hips, his legs trembling. Harry can tell that he’s holding back with difficulty, and he wishes there was some way to tell Ron that he’d be welcome to thrust as long as he doesn’t do it too deeply.

Hermione hisses next to them, and Harry hears the soft wet sound of her hand working in herself.

It gives him an absurd amount of courage. He reaches up and gently grasps Ron’s hips, easing him forwards and then back in short, shallow shoves.

Ron lets his head droop, forwards this time, and nods. “All right. I can do that. Harry.”

The last word is so laden with wonder that Harry smiles, and Ron seems to feel it. He glances down, and smiles back.

And after that it works, just the way Harry thought it would. He eases Ron in and out, and Ron rides the motion with him, barely blinking, his mouth hanging a little open. The wonder and joy deepen in his face, and then the pleasure, and Harry thinks for a moment of the way he feels when Ron is flying next to him in a Quidditch game.

_I like being the one to make him feel this good._

He sucks Ron in hard and deep for the last bit, and tries his best to swallow everything, even though he ends up coughing and having to tear his head away so he can turn to the side and spit out a little liquid onto the Cushioning Charm. Ron sighs, exhausted and sated, from the sound, and rolls off Harry much the way Hermione did. They lie side-by-side and stare up at the sky.

“ _Honestly._ ”

Ron snorts and glances over. “I know you got yourself off to Harry getting me off, Hermione, don’t act prim.”

Harry thinks the last thing Hermione looks like is _prim._ Her legs are soaked, her skin is flushed, her eyes are shining like the sun on the ocean. She still manages to be more put-together than they are, though, as she strengthens the Privacy Charm and then stretches out next to them.

“Just a short nap, and then we need to go back to the hostel so we don’t get sunburned.”

“Yes, madam.”

Harry starts laughing at the sound of Ron’s pretend-cowed voice, and Hermione laughs with him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Harry strokes her hair. Ron looks perfectly happy to be tucked along Harry’s side, next to the two of them.

“I know very well she cast charms to protect against sunburn,” Ron whispers into Harry’s ear, his lips stirring deliciously against Harry’s skin. “She just doesn’t want to chance her Privacy Charm wearing off and everyone else getting an eyeful.”

“Of course I don’t,” Hermione says immediately, at a normal volume, without opening her eyes. “You’re _mine_.”

Harry turns on his side so he can embrace her, and feels Ron doing the same behind him. And they fall asleep like that, in the middle of the first day of pure happiness Harry can remember in years.

_Could a homunculus who wasn’t human feel like this?_

But that’s not something that worries Harry for very long before he falls asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Ginny’s letter catches up with them when they’re trying to get precise Apparition coordinates for a hidden magical town in Australia.

Harry reaches up to tickle the breast feathers of the owl who brought it, and then he goes and gets some water for the bird. He’s aware that he’s putting off opening the letter, but he thinks he’s allowed to do that.

And he’s allowed to have moved on, he repeats to himself, as he glances towards the bed where Ron and Hermione are wrapped around each other in exhausted pleasure. Even if Ginny has changed her mind, that doesn’t mean Harry needs to accept her wanting to date him.

Feeling more secure, he gives the owl a treat and opens the letter.

_Dear Harry,_

_My mum has been asking me to think lately about what human really means, and what being someone really means._

_And I understand it better now. How you feel, and how Ron and Hermione probably feel. Just because someone says that you’re a homunculus doesn’t mean that you’re not human. Especially when you lived your life for seventeen years—or sixteen, I reckon—thinking you were, and going through so many things humans do._

_I can’t promise that I’ll be waiting when you get back. But I might be._

_Love,_   
_Ginny._

Harry shakes his head a little. It sounds as though he and Ginny might be friends again someday, which is something he values, but honestly, he doesn’t have to accept the promise that _maybe_ she’ll date him. He has two lovers who are here, with him, right now. That’s of far more value.

“Mate? Who’s the owl from?”

Ron is awake, blinking sleep from his eyes. Harry has to smile at him. It’s one of the _cutest_ things he’s seen Ron do.

“Ginny,” Harry says, and sees Ron draw himself closer to Hermione, as if he’s cold and can use her to shield himself from getting colder. Harry wants to shake his head. Ron’s insecurities seem so visible now, and Harry can see how deeply the times that he got petty or angry or jealous are linked to that. Ron’s understandable, and Harry doesn’t know why he couldn’t understand before.

“Oh? What’s she want?” Ron’s voice is choppy.

“She says she _might_ be waiting when we get back. _Maybe._ ” Harry rolls his eyes. “You have nothing to worry about, Ron. You and Hermione,” he adds, seeing Hermione stirring now too. She yawns and rolls over on her back, and Harry gets a very nice view of her belly and hips. “I don’t dislike her or anything, but obviously what we had in sixth year wasn’t meant to last, either.”

“It’s good you don’t dislike her,” Hermione murmurs, not opening her eyes. “Disliking your future sister-in-law is a recipe for bad family dinners.”

Harry chokes. The owl gives a little fluttering leap on its perch and hoots in disapproval.

“Harry?”

Hermione’s voice is concerned now, and she’s got up from the bed to come forwards and put a hand on his shoulder. Harry blinks. “Um. Nothing. I just supposed I never thought we would—get married, you know?”

“Did you not want to?” Ron’s voice has that neutral sound it gets when he thinks he’s hiding the insecurities. He rolls onto his stomach and stares between them. “There are procedures, you know, in the Ministry. Laws that mean the three of us can marry. But if you don’t want to do it—”

“No, I _want_ to,” Harry says, with a fierce greed burning in his belly. “I really want to. I just didn’t know we _could._ It’s not possible in the Muggle world.”

Hermione smiles and grabs his hands to draw him back to the bed. “This is one thing where the magical world really does have an advantage over the Muggle one. Loathe as I am to grant that.”

Harry crashes down on the bed between them, laughing, giddy, and twists around to face Ron. He kisses Ron soundly on the nose, laughing again as he watches Ron’s eyes cross trying to watch him, and then rolls onto his back and purrs, “Ron.”

“Yeah?” Every part of Ron’s body is at attention now, flatteringly, as he watches Harry.

“I think I’m ready for you to fuck me now.”

Ron closes his eyes and shudders in response, and then whispers, “Fuck, mate.”

“I said it first.”

Hermione laughs and lies down on the bed next to Harry, tracing one hand over his arm. “I read all about it,” she says. “It would be easier for you to roll over on your stomach, you know, or get up on your knees.”

Harry snorts. “Since when have I taken the easy way?”

“Right, I don’t know why I bothered recommending it,” Hermione says with a sigh, and glances at Ron. “Do you have that lubrication charm we were using the other evening memorized, Ron?”

Harry squirms in anticipation. Honestly, watching Hermione play with Ron’s arse a few evenings ago got him running nearly as hot as the thought of Ron fucking him, and he came in record time.

“Yeah.” Ron swallows and manages to pick up his wand with a trembling hand. Harry cooperates by opening his legs and lifting his hips.

“You—you should hold still, Harry.”

It’s lust and not reluctance that’s making Ron’s voice shake, Harry knows. He pouts at Ron, but lies still, and lets Ron coat his arse with the thick, clear lubricant that the charm conjures. He has to close his eyes as Ron puts his wand down and then slides his fingers slowly into Harry’s arse.

It’s cold at first, shockingly so, but Ron’s fingers are warm, and his hand on Harry’s hip is as firm and reassuring as always. Harry begins to shudder in pleasure soon enough, and opens his eyes to smile up at his best mate.

“Wait until I find the _special_ thing,” Ron says.

“Ron, I told you not to call it the _special_ thing. That sounds so childish.”

Hermione sounds distracted, though, and Harry glances at her to find her eyes locked on his arse. He smiles a little and stretches his legs and arches his back, making Hermione gasp and Ron’s fingers probe deeper into him.

And then Ron does find the _special thing._ Harry feels as if his brain is flaring and blinking like the computers Dudley got as a kid after he’d played with them for a few days.

“What is _that_?” he asks, and shoves himself backwards, asking without words for _again._ Ron grins and obliges him, and Harry’s brain lights up again with bursts of pleasure.

“That’s your prostate,” Hermione says. “It’s an organ that can make a male feel—”

“Hermione, much as I love your lectures, I don’t think Harry can concentrate enough for it to matter right now.”

Ron’s voice is smug, and he’s absolutely right. All Harry can do is squirm on the bed and wait for Ron to press his prostate again, which he does one more time before he takes his hand out of Harry’s arse, and Harry can hear him slicking up his own cock. Harry whines and then winces when he hears the sound.

“I’ve got you, mate,” Ron whispers, probably thinking that the wince is for some other reason.

“I know,” Harry says. “You always do.”

Ron’s smile shines across his face as he enters Harry, slowly, carefully. Harry breathes through the pain at one point, with Hermione’s hand stroking his arm. Then he nods, and Ron pushes forwards again.

He shifts around once he’s in Harry’s arse, and Harry feels weird and full and content. Then Ron hits his prostate again, and Harry gasps and pulls him closer, greedily kissing Ron, trying to get Ron’s tongue in his mouth and Ron’s cock further into his arse and Ron’s everything further into his everything.

“You _really_ like that, huh,” Ron whispers into Harry’s ear as he rides him, his hips making the same shallow thrusts they did the first time Harry sucked him off. “Imagine us doing this again. Imagine me doing this faster and harder, once you’re used to it. Imagine _Hermione_ attaching a cock to herself and doing this to you.”

Harry clenches down, and that he doesn’t come right then is no fault of Ron’s. Hermione bites her lip and cups her own breasts, and Harry manages to turn his head so he can get his mouth around a nipple.

Hermione squeals and drags his head to her chest. Harry can hardly see anything, but it doesn’t matter, not when he’s _feeling_ it all.

He’s not sure if Hermione comes, but she’s obviously enjoying herself, so that’s one thing. He really has to get better at recognizing when a woman comes. Then again, it’s not like he has a lot of experience.

It’s utterly obvious when Ron comes, if only for his harsh breathing and the rush of warmth in Harry’s arse. Ron manages to press against Harry’s prostate one more time, and Harry presses backwards in response and then turns and leans his head in Hermione’s lap and comes himself.

It’s dazzling, thick, and wearying. When he can barely open his eyes after his orgasm, Harry is surprised. He wasn’t this affected the first time, even though he did go to sleep after he’d sucked Ron off.

But Hermione smiles and whispers into his ear as she rolls him onto his back, “I dropped straight off the first time he fucked me, too.”

“All right, mate?”

Harry manages to nod, although his head feels like it weighs about a ton. He yawns and curls up, and Ron and Hermione yawn and curl up with him.

This is the way it’s supposed to go. This is the way he’s supposed to _be._

*

The night before they will probably find Hermione’s parents, Hermione sits down with Harry and takes his hand. Ron glances at her, and reads something in her face that Harry can’t, because he stands abruptly, throws on robes, and stalks out of the room.

“What is it?” Harry asks quietly. He wonders if Hermione is going to say something about her parents that she doesn’t want Ron to hear, although Harry can’t imagine what that could be.

Hermione is silent for long seconds. The little room they’re in (at the top of a kind of hostel that apparently wizards in this little Australian seaside town let out on a regular basis) is surprisingly cool, but then, the Southern Hemisphere is trotting through winter. Hermione biter her lip, and finally looks at him.

“You never asked what else Dumbledore said about the reasons that he made you into a homunculus.”

Harry breathes out slowly. “I was doing my best not to think about it, honestly,” he admits. “I know that isn’t particularly brave or heroic, but—”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione says, and leans forwards across the little table in between them to hug him. “No one could ask more of you than you’ve already done. _No one_ ,” she says fiercely, and Harry imagines that she has the faces of some people back in Britain in mind.

Harry smiles and caresses her hair, and they sit in silence for a few seconds. Then he asks, “Do you think it’s important that I hear it?”

“Yes. But Ron left because he heard it once already, and it made him try to set Dumbledore’s portrait on fire.”

Harry pulls back, so hard that his chair nearly falls over. “ _What_?” he asks. Asks, and not squeaks, even though Hermione tells him later that he definitely did.

“He really _wasn’t_ happy.” Hermione shakes her head. “But we’re going to go back to Britain someday, I think, and you should hear what it is.”

Harry nods, shaken. He doesn’t particularly _want_ to, but neither does he want to just always ignore his condition of being a homunculus, or remain ignorant of something his two best lovers know.

A small smile creeps across his face when he realizes the way he thinks of them. Well, they _are._ Always. Friends and lovers and best mates.

Hermione glances up at him and seems reassured when she sees the smile. She pats his arm and withdraws from his embrace a little to go across the room and retrieve something from the small bag that she unshrank earlier. She gets out a notebook and puts it down on the table between them, even though Harry thinks she probably has what she wants to say memorized.

“Dumbledore created you out of skin and flesh from—various bodies, the Horcrux from Baby Harry, and the magic of the Elder Wand.”

Harry closes his eyes. He _knew_ that he probably came from various dead bodies, or at least one human body. It’s the way that Voldemort must have got his own homunculus body, after all, But it’s another thing to hear it confirmed.

“Why did he think that would work?” he whispers.

The Elder Wand heats up in the holster against his thigh, even as Hermione catches and keeps his hand.

“Partially because it was the Elder Wand, I think, and it could do absurdly powerful things,” she says quietly. “And partially because he assumed that the Horcrux could substitute for a soul. From what he told me, that was one reason he expected you to disintegrate sooner rather than later. The Horcrux was only a shard. He thought it would weaken because it wasn’t designed to power a whole body, or even be _in_ a body once it was detached from the main soul. It would fade, or it would dissipate, and you would just collapse.”

“And would that really be enough to get rid of the Horcrux?” Harry swallows back his own sickness. He _needs_ to know this. “After all, the others needed basilisk venom or Fiendfyre.”

“Remember, he didn’t really know it was a Horcrux at the time, just some kind of Dark magic. He assumed it would fade because such Dark spells do, over time, if they’re not attached to something they can feed on, like a living being’s magic.”

“But I lived,” Harry says quietly.

“You did,” Hermione says, and dashes her hand across her eyes for a second to remove the tears. “You _earned_ that stupid title, Harry, even if I think that you might have given me white hair several times over earning it.”

Harry smiles a little. “Where did my magic come from?”

“The blood and flesh he used was from dead wizards’ bodies. And he also attributed that to the Elder Wand.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No.” Hermione’s hands close on both him and on the notebook, crumpling some of the pages. Harry thinks it’s a measure of her mood that she doesn’t even appear to notice that she’s damaging a _book._ “Harry, there’s no precedent for this. No one has ever _done_ anything like this. Dumbledore said he checked on you a few times over the years, and each time, he was stunned to see that you were still alive.”

“But he didn’t check closely enough to see that I was in a cupboard, then.”

Hermione stares at him, her face stunned, and Harry flushes. He thought she knew. He mentioned it—didn’t he? Or maybe she did know, and it’s just that he said it openly for the first time.

“I should have let Ron burn that stupid portrait,” Hermione whispers finally, her voice softly shaking, furious.

Harry squeezes her hand, and she gets up and comes around the table and buries her face in his shoulder. When she shakes with soft sobs, Harry doesn’t mention it. He holds her, and Hermione finally swallows and goes back to sit on the other side of the table.

“Bet he was surprised when I got old enough to receive my Hogwarts letter,” Harry mutters.

Hermione drowns everything with a gulp, air and tears and fury, and nods. “And that was when the charade started to catch up to him, I think. He assumed that he would be able to announce Baby Harry’s survival and release from the Time Charms when you were—gone, and then allow him to grow up in normal time, which meant that he wouldn’t have needed to use the Potter money or get a letter for years yet. Instead, here _you_ were, thriving and acting like a hu—normal magical child instead of a homunculus.”

“You can say human, Hermione. It’s all right.”

“You _are_ human.”

“But I didn’t start out that way. So the question is, how did it happen?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione bows her head. “Again, Dumbledore’s portrait wanted to attribute everything to the Elder Wand, or the fact that you apparently became the Master of Death. On _accident_ ,” she adds with a huge frown, so Harry can see what she thinks of that kind of thing happening without a plan. Harry grins at her. “He was scrambling, though. Just trying to cover up that he didn’t know, either.”

“But you have a theory.”

Hermione blushes bright red, which, given that they barely bother to wear clothes anymore when it’s just the three of them, means that she turns red _everywhere._ “Am I that obvious?”

“Not to other people, probably.” Harry captures her hand and kisses her knuckles. “But I want to know what it is, my brilliant girl.”

Hermione turns pink with pleasure this time. “All right. I think that the Horcrux was a piece of a soul, and it was living in a human body, and it didn’t have anything to attach to the way it would have if it was still in Baby Harry, or even still in Voldemort. So it _grew_ a soul. It combined with the magic of the Elder Wand and the magic animating the homunculus, and a soul—sprouted.”

Harry swallows. He thought he was past feeling tainted about being a homunculus, but the idea that his soul is really Voldemort’s…

_Well, it turns out that you’re just barely a month past having a piece of his soul inside you anyway, aren’t you? And if it had all been his, it would have gone with the Horcrux when he hit you with the Killing Curse._

“I suppose we should be lucky that none of the others did that,” Harry breathes, trying to imagine battling the diary if it had had its own soul.

“I don’t think they _could_. They weren’t in human bodies.”

Harry blinks at her. “And that made all the difference?”

“Yes. Plus—” Hermione flushes again and bends her head, fiddling with the crumpled pages of the notebook.

“Hermione.”

“You’re going to think it’s silly.”

“The only thing about you that I think is silly is your hatred of Quidditch.”

Hermione laughs, and relaxes. “It was what I spent so much time talking over with Apolline. One of their ancestors was a homunculus, sort of. His soul had existed in its adult body, and then he was killed, but in such a way that his murderer trapped and kept a piece of his soul, the piece that would have formed a ghost under _normal_ circumstances. Eventually the enemy put the piece of soul in a homunculus, I suppose to torture it more. But his soul took control of the homunculus, and escaped, and made his way back to his family. And his body grew, and he lived, and his family protected and guarded him fiercely. I think they made his soul grow with _love_ , Harry.”

She looks defiant at the end, as if she expects Harry to sneer after all. But all Harry can do is put his arms around her and pull her to him.

“Then you did it,” he whispers. “You and Ron. And others who loved me, like Mrs. Weasley and Hagrid and Sirius. But mostly you two. You saved me. You kept me alive. You _keep_ me alive.”

Hermione leans fully into him, and Harry kisses the top of her head. And if they end up making love on the bed before Ron returns, the only objection he has when he comes back is that he missed that part.

That night, Harry finally writes the owl to Ginny that he’s been putting off too long.

_Dear Ginny,_

_It’s fine. It really is. Please do what you can to move on. I hope we’ll always be friends._

_Best,_   
_Harry._

*

“We don’t have a daughter.”

That’s what Hermione’s parents say _after_ she’s restored their memories.

Hermione stands very small with her head bowed and her shoulders hunched as her parents walk into their house and slam the door. Harry and Ron have waited nearby, hidden under the Invisibility Cloak. The grey sky hangs above them, and dust blows past, and Hermione finally turns and walks towards them.

They hug her, and Apparate back to the little room they rented.

That’s when Hermione begins to weep. Harry curls up on one side of her, and Ron takes the chair next to the bed and holds her hand.

Hermione sniffles, and asks for a handkerchief finally. Harry Transfigures her one out of a blank page from the notebook, and Hermione cuddles harder into his hip and sighs. Harry runs his fingers through her hair.

“I suppose I should have expected it,” Hermione whispers finally, tired. “What I did to them was pretty horrible.” She glares at Ron, then at Harry over her shoulder, as if daring them to disagree with her.

“Yeah, it was,” Ron says.

Hermione’s mouth drops open. But Harry knows exactly where Ron’s going with this, they’re perfectly in sync, and he caresses Hermione’s shoulder and leans in to whisper into her ear.

“And what I did with the Cruciatus I cast on Amycus Carrow was pretty terrible. And Ron walking away from us in the middle of the Horcrux hunt was terrible. And we used the Imperius and broke into the bank when we might have been able to find some other way to get the Horcrux cup than casting Unforgivables and robbing the goblins.”

Hermione has shifted to her “listening intently” posture. Harry kisses her ear and goes on.

“The _point_ is, we’ve all done horrible things. And—”

“We love you anyway,” Ron finishes.

Hermione begins crying again when she hears that, but these are softer tears, and they hold her throughout the night. When she’s finally asleep between them, Ron reaches across her shoulder and touches Harry’s, pressing firmly down.

Harry knows what it means, the physical equivalent of the words Ron said to Hermione.

_Together. Until the end. Always._

*

They come back to Britain on an April morning, nearly a year later.

They continued on from Australia to New Zealand, and across the Pacific, and to the States, and down into South America. They went where they wanted and ate what they wanted, and stayed long enough in Brazil to pick up a little Portuguese without using Translation Charms. Harry’s memories are full of dozens of small rooms and the first time that he ate an incredibly greasy American cheeseburger and the waterfall they spent almost half a day gazing at.

And Ron and Hermione. So much laughter and lovemaking and _living._

Harry is no longer afraid that he will simply collapse and disappear one day. Hermione is no longer worried about hurting him by continuing her research into homunculi and how this might have happened.

She even told him that she thinks the Resurrection Stone probably showed him illusions of what he _wanted_ to see rather than the real spirits of the dead on his walk through the Forest, and Harry just nodded, accepting it. The Hallows have wills of their own, as he knows from eleven months of interacting with the Elder Wand and the awakened Cloak. It doesn’t surprise him that the Resurrection Stone would have shown him what he wanted to see to try and convince Harry to keep it.

(That’s also why, when the damn stone showed up on the table next to their bed in Brazil one morning six months ago, Harry grimaced and tucked it away. He’ll keep it. He just doesn’t ever intend to use it).

They walk up to the Burrow and smile at each other as they smell biscuits baking. Harry can see the hunger in Ron’s face, but honestly, he’s feeling much the same way. Not that anything will be exactly the same as it was.

They know that the _Prophet_ hasn’t stopped running stories about him being a homunculus, according to Molly’s letters, but it’s off the front page now, and at least most people seem to think it’s a fairly boring story. They’re much more interested in the cleanup effort going on after the war, and in Baby Harry.

From what Molly has said in her irritated letters—she also had to be stopped from burning Dumbledore’s portrait—Dumbledore apparently instructed the Unspeakables about what to do when Harry died because he knew that he himself might not survive the war. Or might even die of old age before Voldemort came back. If both Dumbledore and Harry were dead, then the Unspeakables were to release Baby Harry from the Time Room and choose a good family to have him raised by. It was to keep hope alive, or some such bollocks.

Honestly, Harry doesn’t care that much anymore. Dumbledore was wrong about his homunculus body decaying overnight, that’s all. And Harry can let him be wrong without needing to go and yell at the portrait about it.

(Satisfying as that might be).

They’ve arrived a few hours before they told Molly they would, to surprise her. But it appears someone else has been watching for them.

The door of the Burrow flies open, and a child much taller than Harry expected comes running out. His hair is fuzzy around his head, and he’s wearing tiny blue robes that make him look like a cloud.

He runs straight to Harry, yelling, “Harry!” as loudly as he can.

Harry extends his arms automatically, not sure if the child is naming himself or calling for Harry. But it doesn’t matter, as Baby Harry grabs his arms and kicks as hard as he can, and, bemused, Harry lifts him up.

Baby Harry is a lot _heavier_ than he was, too. He wheels his feet in the air, giggling, and reaches up to lean his hand on Harry’s scar.

Ron and Hermione go still on either side of him. Harry knows instinctively that they’re planning to intervene if this is hurting him at all.

But Harry closes his eyes, and feels a soft throb in his scar that is nothing like the pain of the Horcrux. A connection to Baby Harry. Something _strange,_ and probably not accounted for in either Dumbledore or Hermione’s theories, but there nonetheless.

“Harry,” Baby Harry says in a deeply satisfied voice.

Harry finds himself shifting the kid automatically so that he’s resting against his hip. Baby Harry wraps his arms around as much of Harry’s chest as he can and leans his head on Harry’s shoulder.

He can feel Ron and Hermione exchanging glances over his head. He looks up, and they stare back and forth between him and Baby Harry.

“Mum’s raising him,” Ron says, continuing the silent conversation.

“ _Look_ at them,” Hermione retorts.

Molly appears in the door of the Burrow then, slipping off her apron. She’s smiling, but there’s a wistful edge to it.

“He was upset all the time, randomly,” she says quietly. “I suspect, although I can’t be sure, that it was when you were. And then he started becoming happier and happier when you owled me that you were in the Atlantic and going closer to Britain. He’s been looking out the window all today.”

“I don’t want to take him away from you—”

Baby Harry lets out a wail that’s ear-piercing at this close distance and digs his hands into Harry’s throat in a death grip.

“Okay, _okay_ , kid, don’t strangle me,” Harry mutters, shifting Baby Harry in his arms.

“Harry,” Baby Harry says. “Stay with me.” It’s a demand.

Harry closes his eyes against the swift tears that spring to them. And—

He doesn’t understand this, or the connection that seems to exist between him and his—what? Little brother? Younger father? Fellow former Horcrux container?

 _Little brother should do it,_ Harry decides, and takes a slow breath. He has responsibilities that he knows, because of the letters he exchanged with Andromeda Tonks, that she’s going to let him honor. She has more wariness about him being a godfather to Teddy at such a young age than she does about him being a homunculus.

He can be a godfather. He can be a big brother.

Ron and Hermione’s hands settle on his shoulders, and Harry nods.

With them, he can do _anything._

Baby Harry kicks to be let down, as though he understands Harry’s mood and accepts it for the answer it is. Harry puts him on the ground, glad for the stranglehold on his neck easing, only to have Baby Harry replicate it on his hand.

“ _Inside_ ,” Baby Harry says, and tows him towards the Burrow.

Ron and Hermione follow, and Molly laughs and kisses Harry on the forehead as he passes her.

“Welcome home,” she whispers. She doesn’t look surprised when Ron and Hermione press in closely against Harry, but then, Ron said that he told her by owl ages ago.

 _Where the three of us are_ —

Baby Harry’s hand gets even tighter.

_Maybe where the four of us are, that’s home._

**The End**.


End file.
